5 Things You Can Do Right Now That Your Future Self Will Love
Happiness and true fulfillment come when you start living for yourself. Your past, future, and present self-all of it.
You grow from your past self, becoming the best version of yourself and learning from every experience you’ve had up to this point. You do the things you used to dream about and make your younger self smile and say, “I can’t believe I did that.”
You live for your present self to stay happy and keep moving towards your goals and the things you love. You prioritize your comfort and happiness, tending to all of your wants and needs so you can feel alive and happy.
You live for your future self by continuously creating and moving towards a life you love. You create the stories you will tell one day and make memories to look back on. Today, actively live for yourself. Do one thing that your future self will love and appreciate.
Here’s how:
1. Print Out Your Favorite Picture
Pick out your current favorite picture of yourself. Maybe you like it because you can see how beautiful you are. It reminds you how perfect your features you are and how pretty the rest of the world sees you. Or maybe it reminds you of a really happy memory. Your smile is genuine and when you look at the photo you can feel every good emotion you felt in that moment. Whatever the reason, take your favorite picture and print it out.
On the back of the photo, write the date, and what you like about it. No one will see it but you, so write what you like and write it freely. If you like the way your hair looks or the outfit you’re wearing, write it down.
Save the photo somewhere safe so one day you’ll be able to look back at it. You’ll be able to remember exactly what you looked like at this age and exactly how beautiful you were.
2. Write a Physical Bucket List
Your dreams, desires, goals, all of that- write it down. The places you want to go and the “bucket list moments” you crave, write them all down. Write things big and small and check things off as you do them.
Not in your phone, not typed out, physically write them on paper. You can make a whole arts and crafts activity about it with glitter and bubble letters or you can write it in a notebook in a super simple bullet list.
The reason for writing it out is purely for your future self. Many, many years from now you’ll be able to look at this list. You’ll get to remember exactly what you wanted at this age, see what your handwriting looked like, and remember how excited you were when making this list.
As you move through life, you can take this list along with you. One day you will move into your dream house and through the chaos of moving and unpacking, you will find this list. You’ll look around you and smile when you remember that at one point, this was your dream and you can finally cross it off.
We all have these “bucket list moments” we talk about. You can talk about how cool it would be to cliff jump and how you dream of dancing around the kitchen at midnight making pancakes with the person you love. You can dream about these things, but if they are written down, sandwiched between two things you already crossed off like “see the Grand Canyon” and “pet a cute dog,” then maybe you will actually do them.
3. Write a Letter to Your Future Self About Your Life Now
Whether life is smooth sailing or an absolute cluster right now, write about it. Write down something that’s absolutely pissing you off right now so one day you can laugh about it. Write about something that’s causing you a whirlwind of stress so you can look back on it once you know how it turns out.
Write a couple of things you’re grateful for and something happy going on in your life right now. Something little that made you smile, because you might forget about it years from now. I promise your future self will smile hearing younger you talk about that person you have a crush on right now.
Describe your bedroom, what you like about it, and how it makes you feel because one day you won’t be living in that room anymore. Write about your friends and some recent memories with them. It will be interesting to see if you’ll still be friends with them by the time you read this.
Write about everything in your life right now. Even the things that seem so simple right now, I promise one day you’ll love to remember even the littlest things on your mind and in your life.
4. Make a Happy Memory
Sometimes moments seem so simple and mundane while they’re happening, but then they end up being our favorite memories.
This is partly because of the butterfly effect, where you have no idea when something incredible will happen from a little decision you made. Maybe you decide to go watch the sunset and end up bumping into your future husband/wife/spouse. You never know.
Or maybe it’s just a really good sunset. Nothing off-the-charts incredible happens, but it was really peaceful to watch and the happiness you got from watching it radiates to the next thing you do. Maybe you take a really pretty picture of the sky and you always remember how incredible it was to watch it.
Chase the happy simple moments that do nothing but flood your mind with happy memories. Give your future self happy little moments to look back on.
5. Reach Out to Someone You Stopped Talking to For a Dumb Reason
A few months ago, I was at a concert having the time of my life when I got the strongest feeling to text a friend I hadn’t talked to in a while. So I went with it. I texted them and long story short, I ended up going to visit them in California and we went to four (!!) Dead shows out there.
In other words, I created some of my greatest memories all because I sucked up my pride and texted them.
My best friend and I are only friends today because we both decided to start talking again after a period of briefly disliking each other. We met in kindergarten, and when middle school rolled around, let’s just say we didn’t exactly get along. Thank god we reached out to each other and started talking again Freshman year because I don’t think I would’ve made it through high school without her. To this day, she is my best friend. If I told this to my middle school self, there is no way I would believe it.
You never know what will happen. Someone might need you more than you realize, and you never know when you’ll fall into place with your lifelong friends or the love of your life.
Today, live for your future self. You are in the process of creating a life you love. Remind yourself that you are alive right now. This is your life, make it a good one.
